Monday, April 30, 2012

Bridget's 8-Week Birthday

I can't believe it.


 The Mutual Admiration Society


She's very smiley and a little dimply these days:


 Wearing a dress from her Auntie Kerry


She's so long that she outgrew her 0-3 month footie outfits last week!


If you think I didn't cry while I packed away two whole sizes of clothing and ordered her a slew of size 2 diapers...you're sadly wrong.

She hasn't recreated the magical seven-hour sleep stretch yet, but she's been doing a solid five followed by two-and-a-half, and after that she wakes up because we're all getting ready to start the day. Oh, how different it all is from Will's babyhood when he slept 10-10 (and we could let him sleep in!). But while we're not getting a lot of sleep, we're getting enough, and that's all we can ask for with an (impossibly adorable) 
eight-week-old running the show.

Happy Eight Weeks, Bridgie Boo!

Sunday, April 29, 2012

The Only Thing it DIDN'T Hit Was the Fan...

Last week was my inaugural Full Week of Solo Parenting Three Children. By 2:15 on Friday afternoon I felt a surge of WE SURVIVED! and that it had gone, overall, well. With the exception of...Thursday.

Thursday morning was fine, normal. Will went to preschool, so I took Finn and Bridget to run a few errands and then we hit the park for some scootering before lunch and preschool pickup. It was a sunny day. Spirits were moderate-to-high. We picked Will up and I brought the gang home. Bridget got tucked into the Bjorn and we got ready for nap. Then it happened.

Finn started protesting nap, so I moved him out of the room he shares with Will (they've been trial-napping together there, too) and timed him out in "Bridget's room." (She uses it for diaper changes, full stop.) He was shrieking and jumping, so I told him that he'd have to stop or I'd leave him there for all of nap time. He could still see me through the cracked door, and he began to gently bounce on the balls of his feet. Juuuuuust to see what I thought about that.

My primary parenting philosophy, which piggybacks on my primary teaching philosophy is: choose short-term pain for long-term gain. So I took a deep sigh and went in to say good night and close the door all the way. He had broken the rules, as much as he'd been pretending to sort of abide by them. I imagine if he was even a year older, he'd have been hollering "But Mom! I wasn't jumping, I was just BOUNCING!" Instead he just screamed until I collected his pillow, blanket and Bobo from the other room and proved I was unmoved.

ANYWAY, at that point Will was doing his every-third-day "rest, not sleep" time, but he stays in his bed and that's the only rule that matters to us. He also sleeps on a small quilt laid over an underpad because he no longer wears a diaper for his nap. So I went about the house, started the dinner process, rotated the laundry through, and then about an hour later, I heard something on the monitor.

I looked. Was Finny putting on underwear?


I went into his room. It was a crime scene. He had pooped in his diaper, removed his diaper--getting poo all over his foot, pants and the crib sheet in the process. Then he had reached through the crib slats for a pair of Will's outgrown underwear he'd seen lying on the floor. Both of Finn's legs were in the same leg hole, and he was whining about that. THAT'S what he was whining about--not the fact that he was sitting in/smeared with poo, but that he was a bit uncomfortable what with this underwear on wrong. !!!!!!!!!!

Even the baby knows this is ridiculous 

So I scooped him out of his crib and bathed him, Bridget still sleeping in the Bjorn, and then I heard a noise from Will's room.

Will had taken himself by surprise by falling asleep after all. He had peed--and he had soaked through EVERYTHING--underwear, pants, tee-shirt, socks (socks!), quilt, underpad, regular sheet, mattress pad. So I helped a wailing Will strip off his saturated clothes, took everything off his bed and Finn's temporary crib, and then went back to Finn to put a diaper and new outfit on HIM.

At this point, my friend Mindy came over and took one look at us: naked, repentant Finn; Will with a trembling lower lip; me jogging Bridget in place to keep her asleep; a gigantic mound of bedding-only laundry in the hallway. I told her the story and then, to my credit, said "I mean, I can't really act surprised, can I? I chose to have a three-year-old, two-year-old and a newborn, so this is probably the kind of thing that's going to happen to people like me, right?" She just shook her head at me and laughed.

There's no moral to this story, I don't think, except maybe: Yay! I kept it mostly together during this really gross event, and also: At least newborns can stay asleep through pretty much anything.



My kids are anything but boring.

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Notes on Bridget at Seven Weeks

She's crazy strong. Especially in her neck and her legs. If I use a Boppy for tummy time, she gets up on her knees and topples herself over as if she's crawling. No more of that, thanks.


She started to get fussy at five weeks old, and she was congested from an ongoing cold, and she stopped sleeping for four or five hours in a row, and I was bummed. The next week I went in to ask about reflux or some other possible cause besides "She's six weeks old, deal with it" and she was diagnosed with an ear infection. AT SIX WEEKS OLD. My home-birthed, breast-fed baby was basically born with an ear infection, so if anyone needs any hippie-equals-healthy myths debunked, I'm the person to call!

 Congested baby in Diane von Furstenberg wrap-dress romper,
courtesy of Leah & Johnny

Thankfully, the antibiotics gave us our old-model newborn back, with a brand-new age-appropriate upgrade--smiling!




She's more like Will than Finn in the car, thank goodness. We've been swaddling her arms so she doesn't knock out her pacifier when she's sleeping there, although she mostly uses the pacifier to go to sleep and lets it drop out when she's unconscious. She does have her squawky and even screamy moments in her bucket seat, but she is often lulled by the car's movement and stays asleep pretty well.

Almost out of the newborn insert...sniff...

For posterity, and because I'm coming to find that I romanticize how "good" my newborns are in the rearview mirror, here are Bridget's sleep patterns (a very rough average of her days and nights), starting with the witching hour:

-fusses, nurses and catnaps from about 7:30-10:30pm
-sleeps 10:30pm-3:30am, eats for 30 min.
-sleeps 4-6:30am, eats and then watches our getting-ready chaos unfold
-sleeps 8-9:30ish, then 10ish to 12pm (yesterday and today she took one of these morning naps in her crib! Woo-hoo!)
-sleeps 1:30-3:30/4 in the Bjorn on me
-sleeps 5:30-7:30, usually also in the Bjorn as I serve and clean up dinner and help with the bedtime routine


Bridget likes the bouncy seat fine--again, that's more of a Will thing than a Finn trait, if we're comparing (which "we" always are, even when we're trying not to!). Of course, she's constantly surrounded by four people of varying sizes who only want to love on her--that certainly helps to keep her happy.




And speaking of those who love her, here are a few recent photos to demonstrate just how much snuggling this girl gets:





And is it EVER fun to snuggle her:






Monday, April 23, 2012

Friday, April 20, 2012

From the Magical Minds of Will and Finn

He marched off along the path leading to my parents' house the other day, backpack secured to back, looking like a kindergartner. "Look at all these bee-yooo-tiful flowers, Mom!" he said, motioning toward my parents' lawn. "I never SAW flowers like that before!" Sometimes I want to bottle him up--Esprit de Will--and keep him forever like this: curious about everything, thoughtful, funny, and downright overjoyed by life.


Oct 9, 2011:
Will: Mom, do aliens talk?
Joanna: Nobody knows if they do or not, or if they even exist.
W: I probably think they are nice.
J: I think so, too.
W: I think they don't not have claws. They only have coats because if they go in a rocketship they go to other planets.

Mar 12, 2012:
J: You guys can watch a little TV while Bridget eats.
W: Mom, are you inviting us to watch Curious George?

Mar 15, 2012:
[Coming back from a walk past the golf course with a new ball for his collection]
"The only thing I say about this golf ball is that it's cleaner than EVER!"

Mar 28, 2012:
[Watching Dinosaur Train after apparently having listened to his mom's Valley Girl voice for too long]
"The conductor just showed us, like, basically a T. Rex!" 

**
[As he stands to put stickers on a paper bag while Finny sits quietly next to him]
"Why do I have to do all the work while the little brother gets the one seat?"

**
[Sitting on the toilet]
"I thought to myself, what's in my bladder? And then I said, oh, right, it's just pee!"

***************************************************************************
He wakes up from a nap with his plush cheeks even pinker than usual. His eyes are at their post-nap, half-mast best, sleepy and mischievous both at once. "I just napped!" he announces proudly, sticking out his plump belly. "Where's Will-Will? Look! My football guys!" He runs over to the plastic figurines and skids on his socks. "I'm okay. I'm okay. Just slipped." I scoop him up anyway, feel his superhuman heat, and I kiss his cheek hard, testing it just to make sure I'm not imagining how perfectly chubby it is. I wish I could gobble this kid up.

Last week, Finn hopped onto the glider, pulled the Boppy into his lap, tugged up his shirt and announced "I nursing my teddy bear." It was all very matter-of-fact. Poor Finny the teenager is going to kill me for posting that picture online.

He recently started interchanging "I'm just jokin'!" and "I'm just funny!"  It's awesome and hilarious. He'll sidle up to Bridget and give her a kiss, put his hand on her head and then pull it away, saying "Aww! She BIT me!" Then he'll give his signature low chuckle, and confess: "Naw, I'm jus' funny!"
*********************
These guys never cease to amaze AND amuse me.

Messing around with PhotoBooth...




The final three photos were taken on Marathon Monday, when temps were in the eighties even in the morning. Yay for an early start to summer!

Thursday, April 19, 2012

Bridget at Six Weeks: A Fashion Icon

 Even for  a model, she's a shade on the scrawny side...


 Flouncy dress on balding baby!


 Ruffled romper!

 What are you bringing toward me?
Is that a...no, are you really going to dress me in a...?

 You bet I am! It's headband-with-a-bow time!

Back in neutrals, but not for long...

 What now?

ENOUGH!

 How long is Bridget? Sooooo long!



 Fine. I guess I could get used to this center-of-attention thing.


Strap on your seatbelt, little girl. I see a lot more pink and purple in your future.

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

February in Review (a lost post from March 3)

March came in like a lion here, albeit a very gentle lion--maybe a cub who's been declawed. In other words, it snowed lightly, school wasn't cancelled, and the winter continues to be absurdly mild.

Here's our February in review:

Dave, his parents and siblings at Uncle Bill's funeral reception

The boys hugging, then roughhousing, as usual...



We had a lovely visit from Auntie Jenny, Fiona and Mica (he's the dog):




Yep, Will still thinks he's of the canine persuasion.


Here was Valentine's Day:
Will made his "King Valentine" crown at preschool.




They proceeded to call themselves Baby Bunting
and take turns in the laundry basket:





They also took turns putting each other to bed
and giving goodnight kisses.


Here are my boys hiding in their box-cave because
"The bear's comin'! Hunters are comin'!"


In the middle of the month, Mindy had her beautiful baby girl:


The original Isis seven went out for dinner to celebrate Noon Baby #3;
the girls got these fantastic tee-shirts for Will and Finn.

 "Biggest Brother Will"

 "Big Brother Finn"

And here's Big Brother Finn in action,
"snuggling the New March Baby!" as he likes to say.

This baby is seriously lucky in the big brother department.


Happy start to March, everyone!